EDUCATIONAL  FUND. 


SPEECH 


OF 


HON.  JUSTIN  S.  MORRILL, 

Q3T  VERMONT, 


IN  THE 


SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 

yipRIL  26,  1876. 


WASHINGTON. 

1876. 


AT 


UNIVERSITY  Of 

ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN' 


SPEECH 


OF 

HON.  JUSTIN  S.  MORRILL. 


The  Senate  having  under  consideration,  as  in 'Committee  of  the  Whole,  the  hill 
(S.  No.  334)  to  establish  an  educational  fund  and  apply  a portion  of  the  proceeds  of 
the  public  lands  to  public  education,  and  to  provide  for  the  more  complete  endow- 
ment and  support  of  national  colleges  for  the  advancement  of  scientific  and  in- 
dustrial education — 

Mr.  MORRILL,  of  Vermont,  said : 

Mr.  President  : The  measure  I have  called  up  to-day  has  for  its 
object  the  aid  of  common  schools  and  some  further  assistance  to  the 
national  colleges.  Other  propositions  are  pending,  both  here  and  in 
the  other  House,  in  relation  to  this  subject;  but  with  all  earnest  men, 
if  the  leading  purposes  mentioned  can  be  secured,  the  details  will 
be  of  minor  importance. 

I start  with  the  proposition  that  all  of  our  public  lands,  which  are 
hereafter  to  be  sold  and  are  not  called  for  as  free  homesteads,  should 
be  held  exclusively  for  educational  purposes — purposes  that  tower 
high  above  and  dwarf  all  others.  Should  any  exception  to  this  rule 
ever  be  suggested,  let  it  then  be  considered  on  its  merits. 

SCHOOL  LANDS  DONATED. 

We  have  already  given  to  States,  without  regard  to  their  popula- 
lation,  140,000,000  acres  of  land  for  the  support  of  common  schools, 
and  eighteen  of  the  States  thus  aided  have  a school  fund  of  $43,866,785. 
The  western  or  new  States,  as  to  common  schools,  would  appear  to 
have  been  liberally  provided  for.  In  the  North  and  East  the  system 
of  common  schools  has  long  held  a foremost  place  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  and  cheerful  contributions  to  their  support  by  self-imposed 
taxation  are  made  with  all  the  regularity  of  the  seasons.  At  the 
South  they  are  far  less  advanced,*  and  having  no  accumulated  school 
funds,  their  people  are  at  present  unequal  to  the  task  of  establishing 
and  adequately  maintaining  such  schools  without  some  national  as- 
sistance, not  national  control,  although  not  unmindful  of  their  utility 
and  fully  appreciating  their  urgent  necessity.  When  even  in  Spain, 
it  is  no  longer  immoral  for  women  tp  know  how  to  read,  and  when 
Sweden  and  Turkey  engage  in  universal  education,  no  American  State 
will  be  found  to  hold  back. 

All  statistics  are  dry — interesting  to  few  and  entertaining  to  none — 
and  some  are  by  no  means  pleasant  or  even  tolerable  to  contemplate; 
but  legislators,  like  surgeons,  must  probe  the  ugliest  sores,  and  cour- 
ageously examine  even  such  facts  as  those  I am  reluctantly  about  to 
expose. 

SCHOOL  POPULATION. 

Our  school  population  of  five  years  of  age  to  seventeen  inclusive 
is  12,055,443,  or  nearly  one-third  of  our  entire  population.  A mighty 
host,  led  now  and  controlled  by  us,  but  soon  to  control  us  and  lead 
the  van  of  civilization  in  the  land  of  their  fathers.  Only  about  one- 
half  of  *this  number,  or  6,545,112,  attend  schools  of  any  sort,  and 


4 


among  all  of  tlie  four  or  five  million  of  colored  papulation  only  180r- 
372  attend  school,  or  hardly  enough  to  furnish  a silver  lining  to  a 
cloud  so  dark.  Five  million  and  a half  of  our  population  cannot 
write  and  four  million  and  a half  cannot  read.  Of  illiterate  male 
adults,  twenty  years  of  age  tand  over,  we  have  1,611,213,  of  which 
number  748,470  are  whites.  There  are  thus  more  illiterate  voters,, 
among  either  white  or  colored,  than  the  usual  majority  of  any  party 
taking  part  at  any  national  election.  They  are,  therefore,  the  potent 
auxiliaries  of  all  parties,  the  decisive  make- weights,  and  must  more 
or  less  control  the  destinies  of  the  country.  Can  any  happy  augury 
of  ages  to  come  be  drawn  from  these  dismal  facts  ? 11  Do  men  gather 
grapes  of  thorns  V’ 

The  liberty  and  equality  of  an  immense  number  of  illiterate  people,, 
unmarked  by  intellectual  eminence  of  any  sort,  empty  of  all  virtuous 
gratitude  springing  from  the  memories  of  childhood  and  the  school- 
room toward  a parental  government,  is  not  such  a state  or  condition  as 
freemen  toil  for,  nor  such  as  they  can  be  expected  to  maintain,  love,  and 
cherish.  Along  with  entire  liberty  and  equality  before  the  law  we  be- 
hold among  mankind  the  foremost  and  the  hindermost  as  well,  and  there 
will  be  distinctions  and  differences  in  both  the  power  and  the  industry 
of  mankind,  and  both  of  hand  and  brain, with  no  two  alike  among  them 
all,  good  or  bad.  It  should  be  the  mission  of  American  legislators  to 
offer  sure  means  for  the  greatest  possible  development  of  this  power 
and  industry,  and  to  diminish  inequality  by  leveling  upward  and  not 
downward.  Thus  only  shall  we  be  able  to  prove  that  republican  in- 
stitutions, quick  to  perceive  and  to  foster  the  most  exalted  personal 
merits  and  qualifications,  will  neither  dwarf  the  state  nor  the  people. 
Thus  only  shall  we  show  that  our  boasted  equality  is  not  inferiority 
to  everybody  else. 

The  several  States  are  greatly  interested  in  the  removal  of  the  deep- 
seated  illiteracy  to  which  I have  referred,  but  by  no  means  exclu- 
sively, as  the  interest  of  the  General  Government  covers  the  same  ter- 
ritory and  embraces  all  and  the  same  voters.  The  election  of  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  and  of  members  of  Congress  cannot  be 
reckoned  as  less  grave  and  important  work  than  that  of  State  gov- 
ernors and  Legislatures.  The  parts  are  not  greater  than  the  whole. 

Through  the  latest  action  of  the  people  upon  the  national  Consti- 
tution we  have  bestowed  universal  suffrage  upon  our  fellow-citizens 
in  all  of  the  States.  The  nation  is  primarily  responsible  for  this  action, 
and,  while  accepting  of  its  advantages,  must  shield  itself  as  well  as 
the  States  from  the  resulting  possible  perils.  The  increased  magni- 
tude of  the  burden  which  has  been  imposed  by  the  sovereign  will  of 
the  nation  manifestly  ought  to  be  borne  by  the  nation.  Universal 
suffrage  must  be  made  a blessing  and  an  honor  to  our  country,  not  a 
curse  to  the  citizen,  nor  to  the  States  and  the  nation.  Every  one  of 
our  citizens  has  been  crowned  with  equal  power  in  the  guidance  of 
national  and  State  affairs ; but  they  have  thus  far  had  too  little  of 
our  aid  to  fit  them  . even  to  guide  themselves.  Many  of  the  States 
resolutely  assume  their  full  share  of  the  great  responsibility,  and  raise 
by  taxation  and  expend  nearly  $100,000,000  annually  for  common 
schools ; and,  when  so  much  more  is  obviously  required,  shall  the 
General  Government  look  on  with  total  indifference,  contributing 
nothing  ? 

CONSTITUTIONAL  POWER. 

Not  only  is  the^ General  Government  profoundly  interested  in  the 
enlightened  and  virtuous  character  of  our  whole  people,  but  it  has  the- 
exclusive  power  touching  the  disposal  of  the  public  lands,  the  largest 


and  most  appropriate  educational  resource  by  which  that  character 
has  been  and  may  be  elevated  and  its  deficiencies  remedied.  The 
language  of  the  Constitution  is : 

The  Congress  shall  have  the  power  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules  and 
regulations  respecting  the^  territory  or  other  property  belonging  to  the  United 
States. 

No  grant  of  power  could  be  more  ample,  none  more  explicit,  and  it 
must  be  exercised.  It  should  not.sleep  and  it  cannot  be  delegated  to 
other  parties.  Congress  itself  must  dispose  of  the  lands  and  make 
such  rules  and  regulations  as  it  chooses.  If  it  appears  needful  and 
proper  to  dispose  of  this  property  for  educational  purposes,  the  noblest 
of  all  purposes,  the  power  of  Congress  is  supreme,  and  it  can  and  ought 
so  to  ordain.  Even  if  the  pathway  were  less  obvious,  we  have  an  un- 
erring guide-board  in  the  great  ordinance  of  1787,  reflecting  so  much 
honor  upon  our  ancestors,  which  not  only  provided  the  flaming  sword 
to  keep  the  great  West  free  from  “ slavery  and  involuntary  servitude,” 
but  also  proclaimed  this  educational  purpose  in  the  strongest  and 
most  unequivocal  terms,  as  will  be  found  in  one  of  its  prominent  ar- 
ticles, namely: 

Akt.  3.  Beligion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being  necessary  to  good  government 
and  the  happiness  of  mankind,  schools  and  the  means  of  education  shall  forever  he 
encouraged. 

These  terms,  made  and  declared  at  the  time  of  the  cession  of  the 
lands  as  “ a compact  between  the  original  States,”  are  mandatory  as 
to  our  duty — national  duty — in  the  premises.  “ Schools  and  the  means 
of  education  shall  forever  be  encouraged,”  not  by  States  alone  but  by 
this  national  fund.  The  logical  concomitants  of  religion,  morality 
and  good  government,  could  not  otherwise  be  secured.  We  must  ad- 
here for  all  time  to  this  compact,  or  be  justly  charged  with  a plain 
and  palpable  breach  of  a sacred  trust. 

The  Government  promised  what  it  would  do  when  it  took  charge 
of*  the  land  fund,  and  that  promise  cannot  be  avoided  by  the  cranky 
plea  that  the  Government  has  nothing  to  do  with  education.  Amer- 
ican citizens  are  not  dependent  paupers,  and  it  is  no  humiliation  for 
them,  in  spite  of  all  cant  phrases,  to  ask  for  what  is  their  due.  They 
form  a great  co-partnership,  having,  among  other  privileges,  an  equal 
interest  in  the  education  and  perfection  of  all  its  members,  and  the 
poorest  member  is  entitled  to  something  better  than  his  unaided  re- 
sources might  otherwise  have  afforded.  If  this  were  not  true  the  as- 
sociation would  be  a failure,  and,  after  all,  the  best  form  of  govern- 
ment, controlled  by  illiterate  bunglers,  might  prove  to  be  the  worst. 
The  great  crises  of  our  so-called  political  experiment  have  passed 
away.  Even  the  greed  of  territorial  acquisitions  and  the  passion  to 
extend  our  rule  over  foreigners,  the  terrible  fanaticism  of  republics, 
it  is  to  be  hoped  has  been  satiated,  and,  with  ample  resources  for 
prosperous  trade  and  commercial  independence,  it  now  remains  to  us 
as  our  chiefest  concern  to  establish  a more  solid  basis  of  hope  for  our 
future  career  through  a broader  and  higher  education,  adapted  to  the 
genius  and  taste  of  the  American  people. 

If  Congress  has  a binding  duty  to  perform  relative  to  education — 
next  to  religion  the  highest  concern  of  mankind — it  has  also  a duty 
scarcely  inferior  in  its  scope  as  to  the  discharge  of  an  important  trust, 
no  less  than  that  of  the  disposal  of  the  residue  of  our  whole  public 
domain,  in  such  manner  as  will  best  promote  the  present  and  future 
welfare,  moral  and  material,  of  a great,  enterprising,  and  exacting- 
people,  and  in  strict  accordance  with  the  terms  of  our  compact. 


6 


Is  it  not  a providential  conjuncture  that,  while  this  moral  exigency 
looms  up  before  us,  a national  resource  of  ample  dimensions  is  also 
waiting  as  a remedy  for  this  very  exigency — a resource  unexhausted 
even  by  unthrifty  husbandry,  and  which  the  common  voice  of  the 
country  will  agree  by  acclamation  should  not  be  disposed  of  without 
a full  equivalent,  nor  for  any  purpose  less  than  the  most  sacred  ? The 
high  duty  of  ownership,  the  great  trust  of  the  original  States,  long 
swaying  to  and  fro,  can  now  be  fully,  fittingly,  and  nobly  discharged. 

The  present  depleted  and  unsatisfactory  financial  condition  of 
many  of  the  Southern  States,  however  substantial  the  latent  elements 
of  their  future  prosperity  may  be,  needs  neither  proof  nor  illustration. 
None  of  us  can  remain  unmindful  of  their  wants,  and  Congress  will 
in  any  constitutional  manner  move  with  alacrity  to  their  relief  when 
it  can  be  done  without  detriment  to  the  Republic,  as  here  it  may  be, 
and  done  patriotically,  with  national  as  well  as  local  advantage. 
These  States  need  all  the  aid  we  can  properly  grant  for  both  common 
schools  and  colleges,  and  they  will  still  have  to  rely,  in  the  race  with 
their  sister  States  and  the  world,  largely  upon  their  own  efforts  and 
enthusiasm  to  place  themselves  on  the  road  to  equal  rank  with  those 
where  educational  institutions  are  more  deeply  rooted  and  where 
they  have  already  given  promise  of  good  and  abundant  fruit. 

EDUCATION  THE  RIGHT  OP  AMERICANS. 

But  while  general  education  must  be  recognized  as  the  common 
outfit  of  all  men  and  the  indisputable  right  of  Americans,  special  and 
a more  comprehensive  education  has  become  more  than  ever  neces- 
sary to  qualify  each  citizen  for  his  own  peculiar  duties  and  position 
in  life.  Our  latest  civilization  and  the  division  of  labor  have  opened 
new  destinies  and  greater  fortunes  to  mankind  by  wondrously  multi- 
plying the  more  productive  and  more  remunerative  occupations  in 
modern  society.  New  educational  wants,  keeping  pace  with  a cen- 
tury and  a half  of  marked  original  research,  have  been  rapidly  created, 
and  nowhere  perhaps  more  conspicuously  than  in  the  United  States. 
The  older  colleges  and  universities  have  served  well  and,  although 
the  relative  value  of  studies  is  not  settled,  with  the  modifications  go- 
ing on,  will  serve  well  to  continue  the  eminence  accorded  to  their  sys- 
tem of  literary  education  for  those  who  are  to  obtain  subsequent 
professional  or  special  training ; yet,  as  the  sole  reliance  and  last  re- 
sort of  the  whole  people,  they  are  not  only  unequally  distributed,  but 
they  have  been  hitherto  either  unable  or  unwilling  to  indulge  much 
curiosity  for  any  explorations  outside  of  moss-covered  traditions,  and 
have  given  too  little  prominence  to  such  scientific  studies  as  might 
be  most  useful  to  the  largest  numbers,  and  strangely  because  of  an 
obsolete  theory  that  such  would  be  accounted  as  of  some  use  in  prac- 
tical life.  A still  more  serious  objection  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  usual 
college  course  now  costs  triple  the  sum  required  fifty  years  ago.  This 
objection  is  a growing  one  and  should  be  overcome  by  larger  public 
patronage  or  be  checked  by  wholesome  competition.  The  ladders  by 
which  boys  climb  from  common  schools  to  a college  education  should 
not  be  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  the  common  people. 

There  is,  therefore,  a boundless  field  to  be  occupied  by  colleges  which 
can  and  will  give  to  students  nowhere  else  provided  for  a greater 
proportion  of  time  to  the  learning,  which  is  not  only  disciplinary,  but 
really  valuable  for  its  own  sake  and  helpful  as  some  part  of  the  founda- 
tion to  a chosen  sphere  in  the  affairs  of  a busy  world.  The  tardy  pro- 
cess of  self-culture,  by  which  men  of  mark  have  sometimes  made  their 
way,  and  which  to  large  numbers,  postponed  until  maturity  points 


7 


to  other  tasks,  is  the  only  process  available,  should  he  aided  at  the 
earliest  moment  by  colleges  that  will  enable  a larger  portion  of  those 
who  cannot  live  without  earning  their  living  to  bring  forth  and  tem- 
per all  the  advantages  of  genius  and  talent  with  which  by  nature 
they  have  been  endowed.  Uncomputed  numbers,  with  unknown  and 
uncomputed  power,  ought  not  to  be  suffered  so  largely  to  run  to  waste. 
We  are  often  sad  to  think  of  the  greater  possibilities  which  even  men 
not  destitute  of  all  fame  have  barely  missed  through  some  slight  mis- 
chance or  short-coming,  but  we  rarely  mourn  and  ponder  over  the 
wide  possibilities  of  the  unknown  multitude  fated  to  live  in  the  shade 
without  culture  or  sunshine  and  wlio  fall  at  last,  like  crowded  trees 
in  the  unvisited  forest,  with  all  their  latent  strength  and  beauty  to 
slumber  forever  with  the  moldering  past.  Among  our  people  there 
is  much  of  this  valuable  timber  that  a Republic  promising  so  grandly 
as  to  race,  position,  and  period  cannot  afford  to  leave  in  the  back- 
ground to  utter  waste.  No;  each  one  is — 

A living  tiling, 

Produced  too  slowly  ever  to  decay ; 

Of  form  and  aspect  too  magnificent 

To  be  destroyed. 

DISCONTENT  OF  LABOBING-MEN. 

Throughout  the  world,  not  excepting  our  own  country,  there  is  a 
deeply-seated  feeling  of  discontent  among  laboring-men,  not  that  they 
must  labor,  for  that  they  are  not  unwilling,  but  that  so  large  a share  of 
labor  is  wholly  rude,  unlettered,  and  so  rarely  loved  or  respected.  Ne- 
cessity binds  them  to  an  unending  routine,  often  transmitted  from  one 
unskilled  generation  to  the  next,  with  no  training  and  no  guidance 
up  the  steep  ascent  to  a higher  plane  of  more  congenial  toil  and  to  a 
better  intellectual  and  social  life.  They  feel  that  much  of  the  exist- 
_ ing  intellectual  superiority  with  which  they  have  to  compete  is  not 
entirely  natural,  but  largely  artificial,  or  only  the  usual  and  inevit- 
able advantage  bestowed  by  schools  and  colleges,  which,  as  they  be- 
lieve, ought  to  embrace  a broader  field  to  which  they  might  furnish  a 
much  larger  proportion  of  recruits  and  by  which  they  could  make  their 
leisure  hours  too  precious  to  be  spent  in  idle  dissipation.  Something 
of  the  legitimate  distinction  conferred  by  human  approbation,  now 
and  then  a prize  among  so  many  blanks,  even  workingmen,  the  most 
industrious  and  upright,  have  a laudable  ambition  to  achieve,  or  to 
have  their  children  achieve,  as  they  might,  if  the  gate-ways  of  toil 
bore  not  too  generally  that  fearful  motto,  “ All  hope  abandon,  ye  who 
enter  here.” 

Pent-up  discontent  in  worn  and  weary  hearts  is  not  less  explosive 
than  pent-up  steam.  Among  the  stern  wrestlers  with  the  world  there 
are  many  striving  for  the  mastery  of  the  bottom  knowledge  and 
skill — now  more  than  ever  necessary — to  do  more  and  better  work, 
and  thereby  to  obtain  not  only  somewhat  greater  pecuniary  rewards 
but  such  honors  as  they  may  fairly  earn;  not  specially  political  hon- 
ors, for  they  know  as  well  as  those  who  have  tasted  such  that  they 
are  but  ashes  in  the  mouths  of  even  the  most  voracious.  Let  them 
be  qualified  for  any  service,  but  above  the  need  of  political  employ- 
ment. A slight  difference  of  earning-power  often  determines  human 
happiness  or  human  misery.  Some  opportunity  for  improvement, 
for  that  training  which  the  wisest  of  men  are  eager  to  obtain  and  find 
indispensable  must  be  conceded  and  tendered  to  this  vast  human 
force,  which,  if  not  wisely  directed,  may  be  mischievously  directed, 
or,  if  not  directed  by  those  to  whom  it  belongs,  it  will  be  directed  by 
demagogues  to  whom  it  ought  not  to  belong  and  whose  trade  ought 


8 


not  to  be  encouraged.  The  ever-active  toilers,  pursuing  their  voca- 
tions with  an  absenteeism  of  the  heart,  are  visibly  restless  under 
what  seems  to  them  the  unescapable  servitude  of  their  whole  class. 
Each  one  harbors  Shakspeare’s  mistaken  conviction : 

Thence  comes  it  that  my  name  receives  a brand, 

And  almost  thence  my  nature  is  subdued 
To  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer’s  hand. 

An  opportunity  only  is  wanted  by  good  men  to  acquire  such  quali- 
fications as  will  afford  through  diligent  effort  some  hope  of  creditable 
eminence  even  while  earning  their  daily  bread  or  some  chance  to 
make  laborious  employments  her'e  and  there  blaze  with  a few  exam- 
ples of  their  own  shining  lights,  and  possibly  to  perpetuate  the  mem- 
ory of  genius,  enterprise,  and  greatness  based  upon  honest  industry 
and  worthy  manhood.  No  one  here  feels  that  poverty  is  a disgrace, 
but  the  disgrace  arises  when  there  is  no  effort  by  industry  and  edu- 
cation to  escape  from  it.  Our  Government,  the  United  States,  pro- 
voking so  much  attention  as  it  does  in  the  history  of  the  world  by 
its  unexampled  growth,  can  afford  neither  cowardice  nor  indolence, 
and  should  awake  to  its  grave  responsibilities  by  being  foremost  to 
respond  to  educational  demands  so  earnest,  so  reasonable,  and  so 
easily  satisfied. 

NATIONAL  CHARACTER. 

Some  learned  sophists  have  claimed  that  the  National  Government 
is  not  responsible  for  the  national  character,  that  it  has  no  personality, 
and  no  duties  as  to  moral  elevation  or  as  to  education  of  any  kind; 
and  they  have  also  even  averred  that  education  can  give  no  guarantee 
to  republican  institutions.  This  is  an  extreme  enunciation  of  the 
doctrine  of  nihilism  or  of  the  governmental  do-nothing  policy,  and  it 
follows  that  the  Government  should  have  no  conscience,  no  sense  of 
honor,  and  be  as  unmindful  of  itself  as  the  thistle-blow,  when  wafted 
hither  and  thither  by  whatever  wiody  currents  chance  to  prevail, 
with  no  power  of  wili  to  choose  whether  to  grow  or  to  perish  by  the 
way-side,  and  if  by  chance  to  grow,  with  no  power  to  propagate  any- 
thing but  thistles.  The  denial  of  governmental  personality  is  the 
disease  of  atheism,  which  covets  all  the  sorrows  but  none  of  the  joys 
or  hopes  of  life,  and  is  compatible  only  with  a ruling  despotism. 

But  this  doctrine  is  alien  to  the  fundamental  idea  of  our  form  of 
government  and  wide  away  from  the  mile-stones  which  mark  its  path- 
way from  the  start.  It  was  intended  that  our  Government  should 
have  special  regard  to  its  own  character,  should  exhibit  the  foresight 
and  statesmanship  of  the  people,  and,  finally,  that  it  should  live  and 
not  die.  It  was  never  intended  that  its  sole  functions  should  be  to 
punish  crime,  keep  the  peace,  collect  taxes,  and  put  down  rebellion, 
and  after  that  to  let  the  world  slide.  Though  we  have  freedom, 
wealth,  and  courage,  and  have  not  character,  have  nob  virtue  and 
knowledge,  we  are  nothing — less  than  sounding  brass  or  a tinkling 
cymbal. 

Long  ago  that  sturdy  puritanic  republican,  John  Milton,  set  forth 
the  doctrine,  by  no  means  alien  to  our  own  era,  that  “ a common- 
wealth ought  to  be  but  as  one  huge  Christian  personage,  one  mighty 
growth  and  stature  of  an  honest  man.”  Again  he  declared,  that  “to 
make  the  people  fitted  to  govern  will  be  to  mend  our  corrupt  and 
faulty  education.”  The  formula  of  John  Locke  was  that  “the  end 
of  government  was  the  good  of  mankind.”  These  were  some  of  the 
principles  that  guided  the  robust  founders  of  our  own  Republic.  In  the 
very  heart  and  core  of  • our  institutions  all  the  virtues  were  to  find  a 
home.  The  people  here  ordained  and  established  a government  for 


9 


the  people ; their  obedience  under  it  was  to  be  obedience  to  them- 
selves ; and  they  have  always  felt  and  always  will  feel  that  to  it  at- 
taches some  responsibility  for  their  own  national  character  and  that 
of  their  posterity.  They  strove  here  in  the  New  World  to  exalt  the 
race  of  mankind  and  to  build  up  model  institutions.  The  good  of 
the  governed,  in  the  highest  political  sense  of  perennial  and  perfect 
health,  was  the  chief  object,  and  that  could  not  be  secured  by  con- 
stitutional indifference  to  their  virtue  and  their  moral  and  intellect- 
ual elevation.  The  national  character  was  not  to  be  exalted  by  faith 
without  works,  but  by  ideas  and  sentiments  springing  from  a broader 
education,  which  inspire  manly  efforts,  and  fill  and  fructify  youthf  ul 
minds. 

The  States,  it  is  true, (have  much  to  do,  but  the  national  Govern- 
ment, superior  in  its  higher  nature  and  wider  scope,  has  more  impor- 
tant work  to  do,  having  given  to  each  State  the  guarantee  of  a repub- 
lican form  of  government,  a guarantee  impossible  of  fulfillment,  as  our 
wisest  men  have  never  denied;  without  general  and  thorough  educa- 
tion. Eich  universities  abroad,  if  not  at  home,  possibly  with  a mini- 
mum of  outspoken  partiality  to  republican  institutions  and  a Cicero- 
nian contempt  for  labor,*  may  be  supported  by  the  voluntary  aid  of 
wealth  or  by  the  generosity  of  men  flickering  in  their  exit  from  the 
world,  but  such  aid  rarely  steps  forth  to  lift  up  the  masses,  whose  ed- 
ucation has  never  been  supported  by  spontaneous  and  continued 
charity,  and  can  only  be  firmly  supported  under  the  auspices  and  di- 
rect inspiration  of  government.  The  national  Government,  however, 
is  not  here  called  upon  to  do  much,  but  its  flag  should  march  at  the 
head  of  the  great  uplifting  procession,  and  cannot  afford  to  hide  away 
in  cheap  non-committalism  when  the  dignity  and  character  if  not  the 
fpture  glory  of  its  citizens  are  dependent  upon  its  leadership. 

To  support  the  character  of  our  national  Government  and  its  honor 
every  citizen  willingly  stands  ready  to  sacrifice  not  only  property 
but  life  itself ; and  shall  it  be  said  for  this  the  Government  is  to  do 
nothing  in  return  ? Are  there  no  reciprocal  duties  ? Stripped  of  per- 
sonality, character,  dignity,  virtue,  and’  moral  elevation  as  a basis  of 
governmental  duties,  what  would  there  be  left  to  love,  or  what  that 
patriotism  would  rush  to  defend  ? What  that  a Christian  would  pray 
might  be  immortal?  The  character  of  a nation  clearly  does  not  al- 
together depend  upon  its  geology,  climate,  soil,  oysters,  and  terrapins, 
but  very  much  upon  its  governmental  and  educational  institutions 
and  upon  that  growth  of  manhood  which  is  their  ripened  product. 
Great  living  may  be  very  well,  but  a great  life  is  far  better.  No  nation 
is  more  sensitive  to  the  estimate  of  others  than  the  American  people. 

Nor  is  it  enough  that  “ the  upper  ten  thousand”  of  cities  have  cul- 
ture and  that  each  rural  village  has  its  luminous  ring  of  the  educated 
minister,  lawyer,  and  doctor.  The  magic  circle  should  be  more  broad- 
ly expanded  and  include  the  whole  country  instead  of  scattered  mi- 
croscopic patches.  Under  a free  government  the  nation  acquires  rank, 
not  by  a few  daintily-polished  individuals,  the  bell-wethers  of  a feeble 
flock,  but  by  the  intelligence  and  majesty  of  the  entire  community ; 
not  by  one  stone  superbly  cut,  but  by  the  proportions  and  grandeur  of 
the  completed  edifice. 

THE  COLORED  RACE. 

But  it  maybe  objected  that  this  policy  includes  all,  without  regard 
to  race  or  color ; and  why  not  ? Are  we  to  praise  freedom  and  shirk 


x “ The  occupations  of  all  artisans,”  says  Cicero,  “are base,  and  the  shop  can  have 
nothing  of  the  respectable.” 


10 


the  duty  of  making  it  better  than  slavery?  Having  emancipated  a 
■whole  race,  shall  it  be  said  there  our  duty  ends,  leaving  the  race  as 
cumberers  of  the  ground,  to  live  or  to  wilt  and  perish,  as  the  case 
may  be?  They  are  members  of  the  American  family — forever  in 
sight — and  their  advancement  concerns  us  all.  While  swiftly  forget- 
ting all  they  ever  knew  as  slaves,  shall  they  have  no  opportunity  to 
learn  anything- as  freemen?  They  are  to  be  the  sources  of  great 
strength  or  of  great  weakness,  of  glory  or  shame.  “ It  is  impossi- 
ble,” says  a recent  English  writer,  “ that  the  knowledge  which  is 
power  in  one  race  can  be  absolutely  impotent  in  another.”  This  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  a truth,  pertinent  to  us  and  our  times,  which  we 
shall  do  well  to  consider.  Surely  the  American  Congress  will  not 
emulate  the  courtly  cruelty  of  the  Duke  of  Alva,  that  minion  of 
Philip  II,  who  promised  to  some  prisoners  life,  but,  when  fclieyfpeti- 
tioned  for  food,  replied  that  “ he  would  grant  them  life  but  no  meat.” 
Shall  we  grant  liberty  and  then  refuse  it  all  nourishment  ? 

ECONOMY. 

I well  know  that  the  present  is  a time  when,  in  the  interest  of 
sound  economy,  all  worthless  schemes,  every  doubtful  expenditure, 
all  windy  humbugs,  as  well  as  all  sinecures,  should  be — will  be — piti- 
lessly slaughtered,  and  I mean  to  contribute,  as  I trust  I have  never 
failed  to  do,  my  full  share  of  work  to  that  kind  of  slaughter ; but  un- 
wise, bat-eyed  economy  may  often  be  actual  prodigality  or  the  sav- 
ing of  seed-corn  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  crop ; and  it  would  be  a 
portentous  omen  to  the  future  destinies  of  our  country  if  aid  and  en- 
couragement to  learning  and  science,  to  schools  and  colleges,  should 
be  doomed  to  crucifixion  in  such  disreputable  company.  Upon  the 
broadest  principles  of  the  purest  and  most  far-reaching  economy,  the 
friends  of  the  present  bill  base  its  highest  claims  to  public  favor,  and 
it  cannot  be  put  down  by  a hue  and  cry  raised  to  crush  measures  of  a 
far  different  character,  with  which  it  has  neither  kinship  nor  affinity. 

It  may  not  improperly  be  claimed  that  this  measure  really  plants 
the  seeds  of  a future  harvest  of  revenue  and  will  in  the  end  not  only 
augment  the  productions  of  industry  and  increase  the  wealth  of  the 
country,  but  that  it  will  thereby  add  considerably  to  the  receipts  of 
the  Treasury,  which  always  rise  or  fall  with  the  general  prosperity  ; 
and  beyond  all  this,  so  far  as  a broader  education  rapidly  tends  to 
multiply  the  number  of  letter- writers,  or  promotes  the  interchange 
of  ideas  and  courtesies,  as  well  as  of  commodities,  it  may  be  expected 
to  contribute  something  toward  lifting  up  even  the  Post-Office  De- 
partment nearer  to  a self-supporting  condition.  The  first  year  of 
common  schools  in  Great  Britain  increased  their  postal  revenue  over 
$3,000,000.  It  is  then  by  no  means  fanciful  dreaming  to  claim  this 
school  and  college  bill  incidentally  as  a revenue  measure,  and  that 
its  passage  will  ultimately  actually  increase  the  revenues  of  the 
country. 

In  every  great  enterprise  it  is  true  we  must  consider  what  we  are 
to  lose  as  well  as  what  we  are  to  gain.  By  the  proposed  measure  of 
further  aid  to  national  colleges  and  a very  substantial  contribution 
to  common  schools,  we  shall  gradually  part  with  our  title  to  the  own- 
ership of  a limited  quantity  of  land — small  in  comparison  with  the 
bulk  of  our  possessions — from  which  the  policy  of  acquiring  ordinary 
revenue  long  ago  practically  ceased.  Broad  acres  we  shall  still  offer 
free  to  all  who  ask  for  homes.  But  for  revenue  purposes  the  public 
lands  can  now  furnish  no  regular  basis,  and  their  value  ought  to  be 
held  as  far  too  precious  to  be  bartered  for  merely  moneyed  equivalents 
that  must  be  swallowed  up  at  once  in  ordinary  expenditures. 


11 


On  the  other  side,  the  gain  here  proposed  to  he  slowly  derived  from 
any  sales  of  these  lands  will  be  a perpetual  educational  fund,  retained 
in  the  custody  of  the  nation  and  kept,  like  the  heat  of  the  summer 
sun,  forever  undiminished,  while  barely  the  interest  thereon  will  be 
annually  expended  by  each  State  for  the  culture  and  enlightenment 
of  all  their  coming  generations. 

By  this  fund  we  first  promote  primary  education  by  aiding  State 
systems  of  common  schools,  and  then  we  are  to  have  institutions  of 
learning — at  least  one  college — in  every  State,  planted  on  foundations 
not  very  magnificent,  it  is  true,  but  as  broad  and  firm  as  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Government  itself,  by  which  a more  complete  education 
in  every  portion  of  the  Union  will  be  brought  within  the  reach  of 
larger  numbers — too  poor  to  seek  it  in  any  modern  Athens  or  Rome — 
and  to  whom  it  will  give  that  “ crown  and  scepter  ” which  thorough 
education  always  gives,  but  gives,  alas ! to  too  few.  Surely,  what  we 
are  to  gain,  as  indicated  even  by  this  tame  and  stinted  recital,  is  far 
more  precious,  far  more  considerable,  than  what  we  are  to  lose.  In 
fact,  it  is  an  error  to  assume  that  we  are  to  lose  anything  when  we 
rescue  and  preserve  for  ages  that  which  might  otherwise  in  some 
earlier  or  later  flood  of  congressional  grants  disappear  altogether, 
leaving  no  enduring  trace  behind  except  the  record  of  sundry  petty 
schemes  with  the  “ hungry  edge  ” of  local  appetite  for  such  schemes 
sharpened  rather  than  satisfied. 

But  even  the  relatively  insignificant  portion  of  the  public  domain 
which  can  now  under  any  circumstances  be  appropriated  for  the  pur- 
poses here  indicated  will  in  many  ways  contribute  to  the  strength  and 
glory  of.  our  country.  It  will  be  "the  disposal  of  the  surplus  part  of  the 
national  farm — of  a few  back  lots — for  the  permanent  improvement 
of  the  remainder,  and  for  increasing  the  skill  and  all  the  forces  of 
those  charged  with  its  future  ownership  and  productive  development. 

RAILROADS. 

It  may  be  that  some  friends  of  further  subsidies  to  railroads  would 
still  prefer  such  projects  to  any  policy  of  education.  It  is  apparent 
that  the  whole  world  have  invested  too  lavishly  in  railroads,  we  more 
than  any  others,,  for  the  interest  of  the  present  generation,  however 
beneficial  the  investments  may  or  may  not  prove  hereafter.  Without 
any  national  system  in  the  location,  but  a “mighty  maze”  of  discord- 
ant lines,  it  is  not  strange  that  an  immense  capital  has  been  sunk. 
From  the  present  temper  of  the  people,  it  may  be  assumed  that  land 
subsidies  have  accomplished  all  they  can  accomplish  and  have  spent 
their  force.  We  have  donated  to  railroads  210,756,807  acres  of  land, 
which  at  double  the  minimum  price,  though  often  fetching  much  more, 
will  amount  .to  $526,892,017.  Will  not  that  suffice  ? I am  sometimes 
forcibly  reminded  of  the  “fable  of  the  lion  and  other  beasts  hunt- 
ing,” where  it  is  shown  how  the  lion  takes  “the  lion’s  share;”  having 
divided  the  prey  into  three  parts,  appropriating  the  first  to  himself 
as  king,  the  second  to  himself  for  his  share  in  the  chase,  and  defying 
anybody  to  lay  hand  on  the  third.  Certainly  the  railroads  appear  to 
have  taken  “the  lion’s  share,”  having  divided  the  prey  and  appro- 
priating the  first  part  as  king,  the  second  to  themselves  as  their  share 
in  the  chase,  and  now  will  they  defy  anybody  to  lay  hand  on  the 
third?  We  shall  see. 

MILITARY  AND  NAVAL  SCHOOLS. 

Very  early  the  national  Government  founded  the  Military  Academy, 
and  subsequently  the  Naval  School.  This  was  done  in  harmony  with 
the  statesmanship  of  past  ages,  and  in  accordance  with  modern  ex- 


12 


arnples,  to  make  the  most  of  tlie  human  fighting  force  of  nations. 
Nothing  was  to  he  spared  necessary  to  educate  and  train  men  in  the 
most  skillful  methods  of  destroying  their  enemies.  A previous  na- 
tional declaration  of  the  purpose,  it  is  understood,  makes  wholesale 
manslaughter  a glorious  achievement.  Even  an  education  pointing 
to  such  an  end  as  this,  embracing  a considerable  share  of  science,  with 
the  modern  languages  and  much  of  the  martial  and  naval  history  and 
philosophy  of  mankind,  as  well  as  the  polish  of  methodical  discipline, 
has  given  a certain  degree  of  superiority  to  those  entitled  to  wear  the 
uniform  of  their  class.  Like  ancient  knights,  they  outranked  the 
common  people,  who  seemed  to  shrivel  up  in  their  presence,  and  to 
this  day,  often  without  the  merit  of  heroic  services,  they  are  accorded 
precedence  over  the  most  distinguished  civilians,  with  only  the  ora- 
torical exceptions,  perhaps,  of  “ bright  particular  stars  ” among  the 
legal  profession. 

Would  this  be  so  if  the  great  masses  of  the  people,  engaged  for  life 
in  pursuits  for  the  support  of  themselves  and  the  institutions  of  hu- 
man government  and  the  adornment  of  Christian  society,  received 
that  training  of  the  schools  which  favors  the  arts  of  peace  and  the 
knowledge  and  skill  which  produces  not  only  men  of  the  highest  value 
to  themselves  and  the  world,  but  which  will  hasten  on  the  millennium 
of  national  arbitrations,  instead  of  more  and  more  sad  and  bloody  pages 
of  human  history  ? 

It  is  not  any  reproach  that  military  and  naval  officers  master  their 
professions  in  schools  supported  by  the  Government,  unless  it  is  done 
with  no  intent  to  render  any  service  therefor,  or  because  the  educa- 
tion is  esteemed  better  than  is  to  be  found  elsewhere,  giving,  as  it 
really  does,  a high  standard  of  duty,  order,  and  military  honor  ; but 
it  is  a reproach  that  governmental  duties  there  stop.  The  defenders 
of  the  country  are  vastly  important,  in  war  indispensable  ; so  are  all 
whom  they  defend,  or  defenders  would  not  be  required.  And  while  the 
latter  are  educated  and  then  maintained  through  life,  the  former,  by 
whose  constant  toil  not  only  soldiers  and  sailors  are  niaintained  but 
the  Government  itself,  ought  not  to  be  dismissed  as  below  the  mili- 
tary standard  in  height  without  some  provision  that  they  too  may  have 
the  proper  educational  armor  to  become  masters  in  their  own  battle- 
fields of  industry. 

While  the  world  is  in  a transition  state  and  all  lands  do  not  yet  rest 
from  war,  the  art  cannot  be  wholly  neglected,  inasmuch  as  it  is  still 
true  that  “ one  sword  keeps  another  in  its  scabbard,”  and  therefore 
something  of  military  science  and  discipline  as  an  incident  of  these 
national  colleges  is  provided  for  and  will  be  obtained  by  all  of  their 
students,  supplying  in  any  emergency  to  each  State  a valuable  aggre- 
gate of  available  knowledge,  and  that  without  any  charge  to  the  Na- 
tional Government. 

WHAT  THE  NATIONAL  COLLEGES  HAVE  DONE. 

But  the  pertinent  inquiry  may  be  made,  what  have  the  colleges, 
started  under  the  act  of  1862,  done  that  gives  room  to  hope  for  their 
success  or  that  entitles  them  to  further  favor  ? It  maybe  too  early  to 
seek  a full  answer  to  this  question,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  be  evaded.  To  call  them  a failure  “ would  be,”  as  the  presi- 
dent of  Dartmouth  College  lately  said  to  me,  u as  absurd  as  to  call 
the  day  a failure  when  we  had  seen  but  half  an  hour  of  it.”  It 
is  unwise  to  despise  small  ^beginnings,'  for  they  often  forerun  great 
things.  It  will  at  once  be  noted  that  nearly  one-third  of  these  col- 
leges have  not  yet  had  time  to  get  into  working  order,  but  by  the 


13 


latest  reports  which  I have  examined  twenty-eight  of  them,  while 
yet  in  the  cradle  of  their  existence,  had  3,842  students  with  356  in- 
structors, being  an  average  of  137  students  and  12.7  instructors  re- 
spectively. .Compare  this  with  the  323  older  institutions,  the  growth 
of  a century,  which  in  1873  had  no  more  than  25,010  students  and 
3,108  instructors,  or  only  an  average  of  77  students  and  9.6  instruct- 
ors respectively.  Surely  these  facts,  so  early  developed  as  budding 
evidences  of  honor  and  usefulness,  wi?l  put  to  flight  any  doubts  as 
to  the  amount  of  work  being  done  or  as  to  the  share  of  public  con- 
sideration they  are  receiving,  and  the  national  colleges  may  now  fear- 
lessly challenge  the  support  of  the  most  cautious  legislators.  Upheld 
by  the  industrial  classes  as  well  as  by  nearly  all  of  the  scientific  men 
of  the  country,  as  they  are  and  will  be,  their  success  cannot  be  doubt- 
ful; and  let  me  ask  for  what  other  15,000,000  million  acres  of  public 
land  has  the  Government  so  much  to  show  ? 

These  colleges  are  often  called  “ agricultural  colleges,”  perhaps  be- 
cause here  for  the  first  time  agriculture  obtained  equal  favor,  or  even 
any  attention,  or  because  several  States  have  given  that  name  to  their 
institutions  as  an  honorable  distinction,  or  possibly  the  term  may  be 
sometimes  derisively  applied,  as  though  it  were  an  absurdity  to  expect 
any  growth  of  science  and  learning  from  an  agricultural  college ; but 
while  it  is  true  that  all  sciences  related  to  agriculture  are  to  be  in- 
cluded and  must  be  and  are  taught  in  these  national  institutions, 
though  not  to  so  great  an  extent  as  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  yet  will  be, 
there  is  nothing  excluded  touching  any  other  industrial,  mechanical, 
or  even  classical  interests.  ’The  charter  is  broad,  covering  no  sham, 
no  inferior  work,  and  if  it  had  been  made  narrower,  these  colleges 
would  not  only  have  been  less  useful  but  even  more  exposed  to  nar- 
row and  jealous  criticism,  and  certainly  would  not  have  escaped  the 
sneers  of  those  who  flout  the  name  of  agricultural  colleges  as  a dam- 
aging epithet  or  as  a brand  of  reproach.  Ignorantly  they  have  possi- 
bly bestowed  a watch-word  of  talismanic  power  which  may  both 
plague  and  shame  the  inventors.  The  clubs  of  jealousy  and  passion 
do  not  always  remain  in  the  hands  of  those  who  first  bring  them  into 
the  conflict. 

By  the  law  of  1862  the  several  States  were  to  establish  at  least  one 
college,  and,  being  unrestricted,  they  could  rightfully  bestow  such 
names  upon  their  respective  colleges  as  they  pleased,  so  long  as  they 
brought  the  character  of  the  institutions  within  the  terms  prescribed 
by  the  act  of  Congress.  Is  it  not  puerile  to  criticise  the  public 
taste  about  mere  names  ? A college  is  not  specially  a 11  union  college” 
because  it  has  been  so  named,  nor  is  a college  merely  a town  college, 
though  bearing  the  name  of  some  town. 

t Not  less  unreasonable  is  it  to  expect  that  all  graduates  of  the  na- 
tional colleges  must  become  agriculturists  and  forever  follow  the 
plow.  They  have  the  right  to  do  that  or  anything  else  they  choose ; 
to  be  artists,  mechanics,  surveyors,  merchants,  teachers,  lawyers,  doc- 
tors, or  ministers ; but  whatsoever  they  are,  they  will  be  better  for 
being  thoroughly  and  scientifically  equipped,  and. they  will  also  be 
better  able  to  tender  more  or  less  valuable  aid  to  all  branches  of  in- 
dustry, despising  none. 

The  total  number  of  professional  men  in  the  United  States  educated 
or  who  should  have  been  educated  at  classical  .colleges  is  only  146,993,* 
while  agriculturists  are  numbered  by  millions  and  consequently 
should  hold,  as  they  do,  prominent  privileges  in  the  national  colleges; 


* Lawyers,  40,736;  clergymen,  43,874;  physicians  and  surgeons,  62,383;  total1 


14 


/ 


but  they  neither  ask  nor  hold  any  exclusive  privileges.  All  the  use- 
ful arts,  all  mechanical  and  industrial  employments,  are  hopefully 
recognized  and  offered  an  impartial  support.  Classical  studies  are  by 
no  means  ignored,  but  are  provided  for  all  those  who  have  time  to 
acquire  them  and  who  may  have  occasion  for  their  future  display, 
and  for  those  who  are  free  from  care  and  solicitude  as  to  present  and 
future  maintenance.  Scientific  knowledge,  however,  in  spite  of  all 
doubts,  is  as  sublime  and  as  beautiful  as  any  other — so  thought  Ba- 
con and  Newton  and  so  thought  Franklin  and  Agassiz — and  being 
also  both  commonly  and  grandly  useful  it  here  has  a leading  position, 
and  what  are  usually  esteemed  as  elegant  and  ornamental  courses  of 
study,  asked  for  by  the  present  limited  class  of  the  so-called  learned 
professions'  and  by  gentlemen  of  leisure,  come  in  as  of  "secondary  im- 
portance, as  they  must  come,  on  the  field  and  in  the  work-shop,  in 
the  counting-room  and  in  the  factory. 

It  is  proposed  to  offer  the  means  for  a generous  and  sound  educa- 
tion, not  without  a body  for  its  feathers  and  with  a steady  leaning 
toward  such  branches  as  will  assist  young  men  in  their  work  when 
they  reach  their  ultimate  field  of  duty  and  prevent  them  from  for- 
saking that  field  because  of  its  monotony  or  because  of  its  exclusion 
from  all  the  graces  and  attractions  of  the  schools.  Is  it  in  vain  to 
seek  to  embellish  the  daily  life  of  physical  labor  with  something  of 
the  luster  of  intellectual  discipline  ? The  brain  is  certainly  not  to  be 
wholly  neglected  because  it  clings  to  such  home-bred  allies  as  bone 
and  muscle,  which  do  more  and  far  better  work  when  wisely  guided 
by  a well-trained  head. 

I find  an  account  of  fifteen  farms  attached  to  the  national  colleges, 
which  average  three  hundred  and  fifty  acres  each,  and  they  are  rapidly 
getting  to  be  farms  of  model  excellence,  where  many  of  the  most  val- 
uable experiments  are  made  and  where,  to  some  extent,  the  best 
breeds  of  stock  are  constantly  exhibited.  What  is  done  is  not  hid  under 
a bushel.  These  farms  with  stock  and  tools  are  expensive,  and  some 
of  the  colleges  are  yet  without  the  requisite  funds  to  secure  or  to 
maintain  them.  Several  of  the  States  have  already  supplied  these 
deficiencies.  The  aid  here  proposed  would  enable  all  to  move  more 
satisfactorily  in  this  direction,  while  it  would  furnish  resources  for 
more  efficient  work  in  many  other  respects. 

If  the  number  of  college  students  proposing  to  be  farmers  is  less 
than  it  should  be,  so  much  the  more  need  is  there  of  creating  and 
cultivating  a taste  in  that  direction,  and  it  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  lack  of  means  for  long  terms  of  study  makes  all  colleges  almost 
inaccessible  to  the  vast  majority  of  mankind.  It  requires  also  some 
intrepidity,  even  for  boys  inured  to  labor,  to  avow  that  they  are  pre- 
paring to  work  with  their  hands,  even  with  skilled  hands,  as  well  as 
with  brains,  among  associates  many  of  whom  are  rather  too  proudly 
setting  out  to  work  and  shine  only  with  the  latter ; but  the  number 
attending  the  national  colleges  with  such  earnest  purposes  is  much 
larger  than  is  supposed  or  than  make  any  proclamation  of  their  in- 
tentions in  advance,  and  the  facilities  for  obtaining  all  the  present 
available  theoretical  and  technical  knowledge  of  agricultural  science 
has  been  in  most  cases,  and  will  be  in  all,  liberally  provided. 

According  to  the  late  census  our  entire  male  population,  ten  years 
old  and  over,  was  14,258,866,  and  5,525,503  of  these  were  engaged  in 
agriculture,  besides  400,000  females  so  engaged.  Almost  one-half  of 
our  whole  population,  it  thus  appears,  are  devoted  to  agriculture. 
They  have,  therefore,  in  numbers  alone  paramount  claims  to  consid- 
eration, and  beyond  such  claims  there  underlies  the  vital  problem  of 


15 


a future  supply  of  cheap  food,  upon  the  abundance  of  which  hinge 
the  growth  and  maintenance  of  a great  people  with  great  and  con- 
stantly expanding  wants.  No  extent  of  land  can  be  sufficient  with- 
out a sufficiency  of  competent  and  willing  labor.  The  vocation  of 
farming  and  husbandry  must  be  made  both  attractive  and  lucrative, 
or  it  will  be,  as  it  has  been,  renounced  at  every  decade  by  an  increas- 
ing number  of  deserters.  The  pursuit  of  money-getting  alone — all- 
pervading  as  the  passion  may  be — is  unsatisfactory,  and  those  who 
furnish  food  for  the  whole  body  of  mankind  may  reasonably  demand 
some  share  of  mental  sustenance  or  at  least  may  demand  the  crumbs 
which  drop  from  the  tables  of  the  learned. 

THE  PRODUCTIVE  POWER  OF  FARMS  DECREASING-. 

It  is  also  a fact  well  ascertained  that  as  a whole  our  soil  is  being 
rapidly  reduced  in  its  productive  power.  I have  heretofore  called  at- 
tention to  this  fact  as  exhibited  in  every  census  return  since  1840. 
Our  husbandry  appears  to  be  based  upon  the  wants  of  the  nineteenth 
century  alone  and  refuses  to  speculate  on  the  wants  of  the  twentieth. 
Present  profits,  not  the  increased  and  fixed  value  of  farms,  absorb  at- 
tention. By  our  too  general  habit  of  uncompensated  cropping  it  is 
plain  that  we  are  steadily  exhausting  the  fertility  of  the  land  in  the 
new  as  well  as  the  older  States.  The  wheat  region  retreats  west- 
wardly  as  relentlessly  as  the  march  of  some  fearful  epidemic ; in  the 
land  of  the  Puritans  they  are  almost  as  dependent  for  corn  a s they 
were  in  the  days  of  Miles  Standish,  when  Indians  furnished  a scant 
supply;  and  now  the  grasshopper  plague  seems  on  the  wing  chal- 
lenging even  the  westward  empire  of  the  farmer. 

The  census  of  1870,  notwithstanding  the  evidences  of  a rapid  de- 
velopment of  wealth  and  population,  discloses  some  unwelcome  facts. 
With  a much  larger  acreage  and  millions  more  of  pop  illation,  as  com- 
pared with  1860,  there  was  only  a small  gain  in  wheat,  oats,  butter, 
and  potatoes,  while  there  was  an  absolute  diminution,  incredible  as  it 
may  appear,  of  cattle,  swine,  corn,  rye,  rice,  tobacco,  cotton,  cheese, 
sugar,  and  molasses.  * Improved  implements  now  enable  farmers  to 
cultivate  double  the  quantity  of  land  cultivated  by  their  fathers,  one 
man  with  the  reaper  doing  the  work  of  ten  men,  and  thereby  securing 
with  less  laborers  greater  present  profits ; but  by  this  grasping,  broad- 
gauged  husbandry,  by  too  infrequent  rotation  of  crops,  by  too  little 
reliance  upon  manual  labor  and  home-made  manure,  and  the  dire  ex- 
haustion which  follows  the  exportation  of  cereal  crops,  they  also  se- 
cure a larger  deterioration  of  the  soil,  and  the  general  crop  per  acre 


*TTnited  States  census  returns! 


1860. 

1870. 

Neat  cattle 

28,  967,  028 
33,  512,  867 
21, 101,  380 
838,  792,  742 
187, 167,  032 
434,209,461 
103,  663,  927 
5,  387,  052 
230.  982 
40, 120,  205 
1,  597,  589 
14,  963,  996 

28,  074,  582 
25, 134,  569 
16,  918,  795 
760,  944,  549 
73,  635,  021 
202,  735,  341 
53,  492, 153 
3,  Oil,  996 
87,  043 
28,  443,  645 
921,  057 
6,  593,  323 

Swine 

Corn - bush.. 

Tobacco  lbs.. 

Cheese lbs.. 

Cotton bales.. 

Sugar libels. . 

Sugar,  maple lbs.. 

Molasses,  maple galls . . 

Molasses,  cane galls.. 

16 


year  by  year  grows  perceptibly  less.  Our  fast  and  thoughtless  ma- 
chine-farming makes  us  forget  that  the  earth  can  ever  grow  old  and 
unfruitful. 

Surely  it  will  not  be  improper  to  give  some  heed  to  the  lesson  brought 
to  our  notice  by  such  ominous  and  irrefutable  facts.  The  only  amend- 
ment possible  is  through  a better  and  more  scientific  treatment  of  the 
soil  as  well  as  a higher  and  better  treatment  of  those  who  are  to  be 
its  future  proprietors.  Is  there  any  mode  by  which  that  result  can  be 
more  generally  and  successfully  promoted  than  through  the  establish- 
ment of  these  national  colleges  ? Certainly  none  are  offered,  none  are 
visible,  at  home  or  abroad. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  products  of  farms  depend  not  more 
upon  their  fertility  than  upon  the  intelligence  of  their  occupants. 
Ireland  is  a land  of  great  fertility,  but  has  not  been  overstocked  with 
schools ; while  Scotland  is  far  less  fertile,  and  has  a much  rougher 
climate,  but  it  has  long  been  famed  for  the  universality  of  its  schools. 
The  result  is  that  Ireland  has  not  been  free  from  famine,  and  her  pop- 
ulation departs  in  droves  to  other  lands  ; while  in  Scotland, 

O’er  a’  the  ills  o’  life  victorious — 

you  not  only  cannot  starve  a Scotchman,  but  the  population  thrive  by 
intelligent  industry  and  is  constantly  on  the  increase. 

Notwithstanding  the  immense  interest  in  farms  and  farmers,  the 
General  Government,  possibly  still  the  largest  land-holder  of  the 
world,  has  yet  done  little,  very  little,  for  agriculture,  even  le«s  than 
many  European  governments.  Only  15,000,000  acres,  all  told,  have 
been  granted  under  the  land  grant  to  the  national  colleges  of  1862, 
and  this  covers  all  that  has  been  done  in  behalf  of  a higher  education, 
not  only  for  the  millions  engaged  in  agriculture,  but  for  the  2,707,421 
pesrons  engaged  in  mechanical,  manufacturing,  and  mining  pursuits. 
Commerce,  with  its  light-houses,  harbors,  breakwaters,  buoys,  coast- 
surveys,  and  naval  protection,  has  sometimes  absorbed  more  in  a single 
year  than  all  that  for  eighty  years  has  been  done  and  all  that  it  is  now 
for  coming  ages  proposed  to  do  for  agriculture. 

I begrudge  nothing  to  commerce ; but  agriculture  and  the  mechanic 
arts  deserve  a more  liberal  recognition,  and  those  employed  in  these 
pursuits,  as  worthy  as  the  worthiest,  can  have  but  little  respect  or  ten- 
derness for  any  fallacies  or  grim  humors  brought  forth  to  exclude 
their  claims.  The  grand  extent  and  dignity  of  agriculture  cannot  be 
safely  or  wisely  ignored  by  any  men  or  any  parties  in  America,  where 
it  is  probable  that  more  real  farms  are  owned,  and  practically  worked 
by  the  owners,  than  in  all  of  Europe.  Tradesmen  may  fail,  com- 
merce may  suffer  shipwreck,  railroads  may  bring  their  owners  and 
creditors  to  grief,  banks  may  stop  payment,  but  the  farmers  never 
stop  ; they  face  all  vicissitudes  of  trade  and  of  adverse  seasons,  face 
even  sneering  neglect,  and,  standing  to  their  noble  but  unambitious 
calling,  are  never  less  than  the  backbone  of  the  State.  Though  the 
world  turns  round,  though  the  flood  comes  and  the  winds  blow,  every 
farmer,  planted  on  the  deep  foundations  of  his  own  homestead,  feels 
that  beyond  all  peradventure  this  is  mine. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  SKILLED  LABOR. 

Perhaps  there  are  few  questions  of  higher  moment  than  the  future 
of  our  industrial  and  mechanical  trades.  The  throng  of  foreign  arti- 
sans and  mechanics  annually  coming  to  our  shores  are  eager  for  places 
at  the  head,  and  our  own  men  must  be  made  superior,  or  at  least  equal 
in  skill,  or  they  may  be  driven  from  their  employments,  and  perhaps 
from  their  homes.  In  many  departments  of  industry  the  longer  ex- 


17 


perience  of  Europe,  and  more  regular  apprenticeship,  gives  to  their 
best  workmen  some  rather  formidable  advantages.  This,  with  the 
imported  barbarous  despotism  reigning  over  our  “ trades  unions/7  re- 
stricting the  number  of  apprentices  among  the  masters,  not  unlike 
the  tyranny  of  wild  horses,  which  kill  off  male  colts,  is  tending  to 
cripple  the  progressive  growth  of  native  mechanics,  and  the  number 
of  young  men  now  seeking,  to  learn  trades  is  unnaturally  circum- 
scribed. The  only  remedy  for  this  is  a higher  standard  of  technical 
education  for  our  own  workmen,  who  should,  with  all  their  inborn 
aptitudes  fully  developed,  everywhere  aim  to  be  the  best,  and  no 
more  be  outstripped  in  the  quality  of  their  work  than  they  are  in  the 
quantity. 

A BENEFIT  TO  ALL  OTHEK  COLLEGES. 

A general  advance  in  the  scholarship  of  farmers  and  mechanics,  of 
merchants  and  manufacturers,  or  of  the  population  at  large,  cannot 
prove  detrimental  to  men  in  the  so-called  learned  professions  or  to 
literary  colleges.  All  these  would  be  stimulated  beyond  a doubt  to 
make  a greater  advance  and  take  up  a higher  position  than  ‘that  now 
held,  as  there  is  indefinite  room ; but  this  should  be  hailed  as  a high 
recommendation,  one  of  the  exalted  benefits  to  accrue  from  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  national  colleges,  and  could  not  be  construed  as  in- 
compatible with  the  standing  and  prosperity  of  existing  literary  insti- 
tutions. If  any  officers  among  the  latter  should  anywhere  exhibit 
skepticism  and  exceptional  jealousy  respecting  a higher  education 
for  the  industrial  population,  as  very  few  have  done  and  less  will  do, 
it  would  justify  the  charge,  not  entirely  new,  that  they  are  too  much 
actuated  by  either  monastic  or  aristocratic  bigotry,  and  deserve  pity 
for  their  palpable  lack  of  sympathy  with  popular  institutions.  I feel 
sure  that  no  true  American  will  ever  prize  his  own  education  higher 
because  there  maybe  others  who  cannot  get  it ; and  the  purpose  here 
is  to  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  colleges  we  have  created,  not  the 
demolition  of  the  old. 

AMERICAN  INVENTIONS. 

Among  the  conspicuous  evidences  of  comparative  intellectual  and 
industrial  activity  of  the  people  of  different  States  may  be  reckoned 
their  inventive  power,  as  exhibited  by  the  number  of  original  patents 
annually  obtained  for  new  and  useful  inventions.  These  require  elab- 
orate thought,  intricate  and  dexterous  combination  of  ideas,  and  the 
practical  application  of  scientific  principles.  Wherever  enlightened 
and  active  industry  prevails,  the  people  will  be  found  to  have  a de- 
cided aptitude  for  devising  and  constructing  labor-saving  instrumen- 
talities— confirming  Franklin’s  humorous  definition  of  man  as  “an  an- 
imal who  makes  tools 77 — though  not  so  much  for  the  object  of  saving 
labor  as  for  increasing  the  rapidity  of  production  and  improving  the 
quality  of  the  product.  It  is  the  triumph  of  brain-power,  which 
once  put  in  motion  by  schools  and  colleges  never  stops,  but  keeps  on 
to  the  end  of  life.  One  success  is  an  incitement  to  fresh  ventures  and 
the  inspiration  which  leads  others  to  kindred  efforts.  Perhaps  we  have 
no  reason  to  be  dissatisfied  with  our  present  record  when  contrasted 
with  that  of  other  nations,  as  it  will  show  four  times  the  number  of 
patents  annually  issued  compared  with  Great  Britain,  notwitstand- 
ing that  no  applicant  there  is  refused,  questions  of  interference  being 
left  to  the  courts,  while  here  nearly  one-third  are  rejected  for  reasons 
of  conflict,  lack  of  priority,  or  inutility.  It  is  even  possible  that  we 
are  as  widely  known  abroad  for  our  Yankee  inventions  as  for  any- 
thing else. 

2 M 


18 


The  State  of  Michigan,  largely  agricultural,  is  young  and  vigorous, 
just  out  of  its  teens,  and  yet  in  1873  there  were  356  inventors,  or  one 
annually  to  every  3,326  of  her  people;  hut  South  Carolina,  one  of  the 
old  “thirteen,”  unfortunately  deficient  in  schools  and  colleges,  had 
only  25,  or  one  to  every  28,224  of  her  people.  The  State  of  Connec- 
ticut, crowded  with  manufactures  and  the  mechanic  arts,  leads  off 
in  the  same  year  with  622  inventors,  or  one  to  every  864  of  her  peo- 
ple; while  in  New  Mexico,  nearly  barren  of  educational  institutions, 
there  was  only  one  patent  issued  among  a population  of  over  91,000. 
Michigan  and  Connecticut  are  blest,  not  only  with  the  best  system 
of  common  schools,  but  with  higher  institutions  of  learning  among 
the  foremost  in  the  land.  These  States  stand  in  the  front  rank  as  to 
wealth  and  education,  and  there  can  hardly  be  a better  illustration 
of  the  fact  than  the  number  of  patents  annually  won  by  their  people. 
They  are  constantly  surprising  their  contemporaries  by  something 
new,  that  will  lighten  labor  and  benefit  the  world. 

Patents  were  first  devised  to  secure  titles  of  nobility,  but  when  they 
were  at  length  used  to  secure  the  titles  of  the  inventors  to  the  cut- 
nail  machine,  the  American  reaper,  the  sewing-machine,  and  the  elec- 
tric telegraph,  they  were  used  for  a far  nobler  purpose.  Here  are 
titles  of  nobility,  not  incompatible  with  republican  institutions,  but 
adorning  and  giving  luster  to  the  pedigree  of  the  humblest  citizen. 

“The  nation  most  quickly  promoting  the  intellectual  development 
of  its  industrial  population,”  says  Justus  Liebig,  “must  advance,  as 
surely  as  the  country  neglecting  it  must  inevitably  retrograde.” 

The  world  is  beginning  to  comprehend  this  profound  truth.  The  . 
vaunting  of  our  superiority  over  what  we  esteem  the  less  favored  por- 
tions of  mankind,  while  "they  are  steadily  advancing,  will  beget  a 
complacent  stand-still  policy,  and  too  late  we  may  find  that  we  have 
much  to  learn,  as  we  found  at  the  London  exhibition,  as  the  British 
found  at  the  Paris  exposition,  and  as  the  French  found  while  held  by 
the  mailed  hand  of  better-educated  Prussia. 

THE  CENTENNIAL. 

Our  Centennial  will  truly  exhibit  a young  nation  of  wonderful 
promise,  but  tfee  disclosure  of  deficiencies  sure  to  occur — when  we  shall 
“ see  ourselves  as  others  see  us  ” — will  be  a lesson  not  least  to  be  prized 
if  it  shall  cure  the  small  amount  of  conceit  to  which  in  our  modest 
moods  we  sometimes  slyly  and  reluctantly  confess.  Of  course  we 
can  “ whip  all  creation,”  nevertheless  it  may  not  be  well  to  challenge 
such  a strain  oftener  than  centennially.  Modern  civilization,  the 
arts,  trade,  and  commerce,  bring  out  the  relative  value  of  the  masses, 
and  nations  no  longer  conquer  and  are  no  longer  judged  by  the  brill- 
iant career  of  a single  successful  leader.  The  combined  power  of 
the  people,  their  aggregate  force  and  their  general  intelligence,  gives 
the  chief  luster  to  and  mainly  determines  the  destiny  of  nations.  The 
power  of  educated  force  and  skill  is  pre-eminently  the  great  gift  to 
man,  and  brings  in  its  train  not  only  intellectual  wealth  but  material 
and  political  independence.  It  does  not  attempt  to  “ cut  blocks  with 
a razor,”  nor  to  fit  round  holes  with  square  plugs.  Why  do  we  at  so 
much  cost  open  many  mines  only  to  find  at  last^nothing  to  show 
but  a hole  in  the  ground  ? More  special  previous  training  might  pre- 
clude this  not  uncommon  grief.  Why  are  so  many  of  our  railroads 
non-paying  investments  ? Largely  because  they  have  been  unscien- 
tifically located,  and  then  built  not  only  prematurely,  or  in  advance 
of  any  business  support,  but  with  a lavish  disregard  of  expenditure. 

It  has  been  computed  that  not  less  than  several  hundred  millions  of 


10 


dollars  have  been  lost  in  the  United  States  by  inferior  and  faulty  rail- 
road engineering.  Certainly  the  over  $4,000,000,000  invested  is  now 
barely  worth  half  the  cost.  Germany,  far  better  educated  in  this 
respect,  obtains  large  revenues  from  railroads,  and  constructs  them 
more  scientifically,  and  even  with  a praiseworthy  parsimony,  as  we 
might  have  done,  if  national  colleges  in  every  State  had  furnished 
engineers  with  the  appropriate  training.  In  the  time  of  Plato,  as  he 
says,  “ you  could  buy  a common  builder  for  five  or  six  minse  at  most, 
but  for  a master-workman  not  even  for  ten  thousand  drachmae,  for 
there  are  few  of  them  even  among  all  the  Greeks.”  That  is  to  say, 
the  master-workman  was  then  worth  twenty  times  the  price  of  a com- 
mon laborer.  There  and  here  men  are  no  longer  slaves,  but  the  dif- 
ference in  their  personal  valuation  has  not  diminished  by  lapse  of 
time. 

EDUCATED  MEN. 

But  beyond  the  calculation  of  mere  dollars  and  cents,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  an  axiom  that  where  the  masses  are  educated,  there  will 
be  a nation  of  patriots,  strongly  devoted  to  the  principles  of  civil 
liberty  and  observant  of  the  laws  of  a stable  government.  Such  men 
build-up  and  do  not  tear  down.  One  thoroughly  educated  man  exerts 
an  influence  over  an  entire  neighborhood,  sometimes  throughout  the 
state  and  nation  ; but  the  influence  of  a well-directed  college  is  much 
more  extensive  and  much  more  permanent.  The  latter  is  a perennial 
fountain,  always  pouring  forth  a living  stream  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual missionaries.  Generation  after  generation  may  pass  away, 
but  the  college  never  dies.  Our  national  colleges,  fitted  for  their 
work,  are  not  servile  copies  of  previously  existing  institutions,  whether 
at  home  or  abroad ; but,  though  different,  are  intended  to  be  in  the 
progress  of  time  not  inferior  in  character  and  completeness  to  any  in 
the  world — capable  of  a continuous  and  healthy  growth,  and  in  en- 
tire harmony  with  the  wants  and  sentiments  of  the  American  people 
and  of  the  age.  They  will  tend  to  produce  unity,  amity,  and  equality 
among  States  widely  separated,  but  going  hand  in  hand  to  the  end  of 
time.  They  will  make  a perpetual  contribution  to  the  political 
strength  and  the  intellectual  stamina  of  our  country,  which  is  to  be 
forever  governed  by  the  people ; and  the  great  question  now  to  be 
solved  is  whether  it  shall  be  well  governed  by  an  educated,  vigorous, 
and  virtuous  people,  or  be  dragged  down  by  the  preponderance  of 
illiterate  and  blundering  imbecility,  as  theconspicuous  wreck  of  the 
last  vain  hope^of  mankind. 

TEACHERS. 

It  has  been  conceded  by  nearly  all  of  the  profoundest  thinkers 
upon  the  subject  that  the  speediest  way  to  promote  general  education 
is  first  to  establish  institutions  where  the  highest  and  most  thorough 
culture  can  be  obtained,  as  a true  standard  of  excellence,  and  in  order 
to  furnish  the  best  tools  for  future  work,  or  to  supply  a full  corps  of 
competent  teachers  for  the  preparatory  and  common  schools.  Ex- 
penditures to  sustain  incompetent  teachers  are  not  only  a positive 
waste  of  money  but  an  irreparable  waste  of  time  on  the  part  of 
scholars.  We  are  young  but  once,  and,  if  untaught  or  ill-taught  then, 
few  will  wonder  or  lament  if  our  dust  shall  steal  in  silence  to  the 
“ tombs  of  short  memories.”  The  old  English  proverb  ran,  “It  is  as 
good  to  be  unborn  as  unbred.” 

In  all  of  the  States  there  is  a great  want  of  thoroughly  qualified 
teachers.  The  poorly  qualified  so  largely  outnumber  the  better  sort 
and  so  largely  underbid  in  the  matter  of  wages  that  they  have  brought 


20 


discredit  upon  tlie  profession.  Competent  teachers,  who  should  he 
retained  for  life,  shun  the  ridicule  heaped  upon  the  whole  class  of  tem- 
porary pedagogues  and  jump  out  of  the  profession  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. Elevate  the  whole  class  and  there  will  arise  an  esprit  de  corps 
that  will  permanently  protect  its  own  reputation. 

This  want  of  proper  teachers  is  not  only  very  conspicuous  in  the 
Southern  States,  and  so  to  continue  until  an  indigenous  supply  can  be 
provided,  but  the  want  pervades  all  of  the  Northern  States,  appa- 
rently becoming  year  by  year  more  aggravated,  and  only  populous 
cities  and  large  towns  now  secure  the  best  class  of  teachers.  The 
rural  districts  for  the  most  part  maintain  school-mistresses,  who 
quickly  manage  “ to  step  down  and  out”  by  getting  married,  and  but 
a few  of  the  sex  of  which  Dominie  Sampson  and  IchabodjCrane  were 
such  shining  ornaments. 

In  the  message  of  the  governor*  of  Pennsylvania  of  January,  1874, 
we  have  the  “ startling  declaration”  that  15,003  persons  in  that  great 
and  prosperous  Commonwealth  received  certificates*  as  teachers  in 
common  schools,  but  only  374  of  this  multitude  “ were  found  to  have 
a thorough  knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  geography,  and 
grammar.”  Certainly  that  State  is  not  alone  deficient  or  in  danger 
of  falling  into  the  ditch  by  employing  the  blind  to  lead  the  blind. 

If  good  teachers  are  sadly  needed  in  Northern  States,  are  there  not 
abundant  reasons  to  suppose  that  they  may  be  needed  elsewhere  ? 

The  national  colleges  in  the  Southern  States  are  thus  far  sending 
out  a very  large  part  of  all  their  graduates  as  teachers.  There  is  a 
constantly  increasing  demand  for  them,  and,  being  mostly  to  the 
“ manner  born,”  they  escape  the  jealousy  to  which  teachers  from  dis- 
tant States  have  often  been  and  long  will  be  subjected.  These  col- 
leges will  assuredly  make  large  additions  to  the  stock  of  thoroughly- 
trained  educators,  and  those  that  are  incompetent  are  always  unat- 
tractive and  profitless  to  the  pupils  most  in  need.  If  there  were  no 
other  work  for  national  colleges,  here  is  enough  and  sufficiently  im- 
portant to  repay  all  of  their  present  and  prospective  cost.  It  is  mani- 
festly an  indispensable  prerequisite  to  the  foundation  and  maintenance 
of  common  schools  that  a regular  army  of  proper  teachers,  more  than 
one  lesson  in  advance  of  the  pupils,  should  first  be  created  and  com- 
posed of  those  who  will  be  most  in  harmony  with  our  civilization, 
life,  and  Government. 

NO  JEALOUSY  AMONG  INSTITUTIONS  OF  LEARNING. 

The  national  colleges,  unlike  some  other  more  favored  institutions, 
have  not  been  so  enriched  by  endowments  as  to  be  made  too  proud  to 
ask  for  more,  nor  are  they  so  envious  of  the  prosperity  of  others  as 
to  view  with  alarm  efforts  made  to  multiply  American  institutions  of 
learning,  or  to  make  them  stronger  and  of  greater  utility.  They  are 
young,  scarcely  half -fledged,  and  confess  their  immaturity ; but  they 
start  at  a time  when  most  needed,  and,  young  as  they  are,  show  that 
they  are  beginning  a work  of  great  magnitude,  truly  American  in 
character,  which  has  not  been  done  and  will  not  be  done  without 
their  assistance.  They  modestly  but  firmly  stand  on  their  own  merits, 
interfering  with  nobody,  except  to  offer  a liberal  education,  not  too 
greatly  encumbered  by  old  traditions,  and  abreast  with  the  advance 
of  the  present  times,  that  will  be  accepted  by  many  instead  of  by  a 
few,  to  whom  it  will  be  more  available  because  tendered  at  less  cost, 
and  better  because  of  more  flexibility  with  reference  to  their  taste, 


♦Annual  message  of  Governor  Hartranft. 


21 


habits,  and  position  in  life.  A leading  object  has  been  and  will  be  to 
reach  out  and  to  include  more  of  those,  to  be  gathered  nowhere  else, 
who  can  be  made  of  greater  value  to  their  country  through  a higher 
development  of  their  natural  faculties,  by  bringing  out  the  gold  that 
is  in  them  as  well  as  the  iron. 

With  an  institution  of  this  kind  in  each  State,  all  the  local  wants, 
however  various  and  widely  apart,  can  be  wisely  studied  and  pro- 
vided for,  and  many  young  men  will  obtain  near  at  home  a sound 
mental  training  who  might  otherwise  never  have  been  prompted  to 
make  the  necessary  effort,  or,  if  prompted,  might  not  have  been  able 
to  afford  the  expenditure  and  loss  which  would  be  involved  in  its 
pursuit  by  a deduction  of  four  years  from  remunerative  industry,  in- 
cluding also  a costly  pilgrimage  to  more  distant  and  expensive  estab- 
lishments. Having  an  opportunity  to  acquire  an  education  which 
will  plant  the  foundations  that  serve  to  some  extent  to  support  pur- 
suits or  professions  previously  chosen,  they  will  not  be  driven  at  the 
last  moment  to  choose  abruptly  a profession  to  fit  their  education. 

Some  of  the  time-honored  literary  institutions,  needing  nothing,  ask 
nothing  for  themselves,  and  it  would  be  passing  strange  if  they  should 
complain  of  any  Government  favor  to  others.  Far  above  the  reach 
of  rivalry,  grandly  subsidized  by  private  endowments,  and  encour- 
aged by  the  loyal  support  of  their  ever-swarming  alumni,  it  cannot 
be  supposed  they  would  foreclose  and  deny  everywhere  to  others  all 
support,  and,  “ like  an  Eastern  despot/’  to  use  the  words  of  Bacon, 
u strangle  their  rivals  in  order  to  reign  peaceably.” 

* If  the  Government,  however,  is  to  do  anything,  it  cannot  attempt 
indiscriminate  aid,  and  certainly  need  not  help  those  in  no  want  of 
help,  but  must  make  its  selection  so  as  to  benefit  the  largest  and  most 
meritorious  numbers  among  the  industrial  classes  who  fail  to  find 
existing  and  accessible  institutions  adapted  to  their  special  wants. 
The  proposed  grant  will  place  no  national  college  upon  an  equal 
footing  with  many  of  those  which  are  already  rich,  and  which  it  is 
to  be  hoped  will  be  too  proud  and  too  generous  to  exhibit  any  jeal- 
ousy of  the  prosperity  of  others ; for,  with  their  troops  of  active  friends 
already  organized,  even  when  any  calamity  overtakes  them  it  only 
foreshadows  a larger  measure  of  prosperity,  or  proves  the  signal  of 
fresh  bounties  from  those  who  seem  more  ready  to  give  than  are  the 
afflicted  to  ask. 

But  can  a few  literary  institutions,  renowned  and  opulent  as  they 
may  be,  with  all  other  similar  but  less  favored  institutions  following 
with  unequal  steps  in  their  wake,  do  the  educational  work  of  Texas, 
of  Kansas,  of  Mississippi  and  North  Carolina,  as  well  as  of  all  the 
other  States  ? In  all  or  nearly  all  of  the  old  literary  colleges,  as  has 
been  shown,  they  have  but  25,010  students,  of  whom  less  than  one- 
fourth  graduate  annually ; and  thus  they  turn  out  not  many  more 
than  five  thousand  educated  young  men  annually  for  the  whole  of 
our  forty-six  States  and  Territories,  or  not  enough  to  furnish  one  in 
ten  of  the  civil  service  of  the  United  States.  Can  that  be  considered 
adequate  to  the  full  requirements  of  44,000,000  of  people,  having  an 
annual  increase  of  males  alone  of  not  less  than  500,000  ? On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  furnishing  a sadly  inadequate  equipment.  One  thoroughly 
educated  boy  in  a thousand  is  not  enough.  It  will  not  leaven  the 
whole  lump.  We  require  the  seeds  of  a more  advanced  educational 
culture  to  be  planted  where  they  will  grow  and  ultimately  be  diffused 
over  all  parts  of  the  land,  leaving  no  Boeotian  deserts,  and,  when  dif- 
fused, that  the  benefit  shall  accrue  to  all  classes  of  the  community 
and  even  to  the  land  itself. 

No  well-established  institution  fears  to  be  outrun,  nor  will  any  one 


22 


r 


attempt  to  monopolize  the  whole  work  of  higher  education  or  seek 
to  stand  as  a central  luminary  in  whose  presence  all  others  must  “ pale 
their  ineffectual  fire.”  Education  as  a monopoly  would  he  the  direst 
and  most  odious  of  all  monopolies.  But  a broad  and  popular  system 
should  disseminate  more  universally  a higher  as  well  as  a common- 
school  education  in  each  and  every  State.  No  portion  of  our  country 
should  be  left  as  a possible  future  wilderness  of  ignorance.  Seats  of 
ample  learning  on  one  edge  only  of  the  Republic  would  be  like  a 
beautiful  garden  on  one  side  of  an  immense  estate  with  all  of  the  re- 
mainder left  barren  and  desolate  or  thick  set  with  weeds  and  bram- 
bles. Men  trained  and  fitted  for  any  and  every  duty  must  be  grown 
and  ripened  in  the  localities  where  wanted  in  order  that,  whenever 
a first-class  man  of  science  or  learning  seems  to  be  required  in  any 
vocation  or  position,  no  State  shall  be  found  deficient  and  be  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  the  weak  and  uncertain  dependenence  of  trans- 
planting the  unemployed  surplus,  the  cheapest  floating  stock  of  more 
distant  regions.  American  States,  unlike  those  of  ancient  Greece, 
will  ever  be  reluctant  to  send  to  Sparta  for  commanders. 

CONCLUSION. 

No  Senator  ever  speaks  without  some  impression,  more  or  less  pro- 
found, of  the  importance  of  his  subject.  If  I have  erred  in  this  esti- 
mate by  trespassing  so  long  upon  the  patience  of  the  Senate,  I crave 
that  charity  which  others  may  need  when  embarrassed  by  the  diver- 
sity and  abundance  of  the  facts  and  details  to  be  submitted.  I have 
endeavored  to  point  out — 

First.  That  the  fund  to  arise  from  all  sales  of  public  lands  must  here- 
after be  very  inconsiderable.  Whatever  the  extent  of  the  public  do- 
mains may  be,  it  is  growing  less  year  by  year,  and  the  homestead  de- 
mands, by  foreign  immigrants  and  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
American  citizens  annually  arriving  at  their  majority,  are  steadily 
increasing.  Surely  the  small  driblets  remaining  to  be  actually  sold 
ought  to  be  consecrated,  in  accordance  with  the  conditions  set  forth 
in  our  title  deeds,  to  “ schools  and  the  means  of  education  ” for  the 
permanent  and  universal  benefit  of  the  people. 

Second.  That  more  aid  to  common  schools  of  a better  type  is  needed 
in  every  quarter  of  our  Union  and  that  it  is  much  wiser  to  give  to  youth 
assurance  and  faith  in  a higher  lif etthan  to  provide  dungeons  for  man- 
hood. 

Third.  That  the  number  of  those  who  are' being  thoroughly  edu- 
cated is  disproportionately  small,  and  that  colleges  to  which  many 
more  of  all  the  industrial  classes  might  resort  are  not  only  vitally  im- 
portant but  are  loudly  demanded  by  all  those  who  do  not  hold  an 
education  to  be  a baneful  luxury  from  which  all  the  indigent  and  in- 
dustrious, as  so  many  born  dunces,  are  to  be  excluded  in  the  lump. 

Fourth.  That,  while  it  is  not  proposed  to  divert  any  funds  from 
the  Treasury  that  will  not  yield  a fourfold  return,  the  objects  aimed 
at  are  more  precious  than  gold  or  silver,  and  a higher  and  more  uni- 
versal education  will  yoke  neither  the  people  nor  the  Treasury  with 
poverty. 

Finally,  may  I not  invoke  favor  to  such  legislation  as  not  infre- 
quently makes  men  better  than  the  law,  that  will  tend  to  kindle 
a national  passion  to  have  Americans  as  a whole  become  the  best  edu- 
cated of  any  people  in  the  world,  that  will  attach  them  more  ardently 
to  a free  government  than  to  any  other  known  to  mankind,  that  will 
inspire  some  ambition  to  excel  in  the  arts  of  peace  as  well  as  in  the 
arts  of  war,  and  bring  forth  that  wisdom  which  gives  security  and 
progress  to  society,  and  which  may  serve  to  make  our  native  land  and 
its  ever-increasing  millions  of  people  eminent  in  the  future  annals  of 
time  for  all  the  virtues  required  to  adorn  character  or  race  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth  ? 


o 


V 


I 


